Yesterday was my one day off blogging
I didn't post yesterday because Leap Day was Blog365's one day off for the year. It wasn't that there was a rule against posting, more just strong encouragement to take a break. I have to admit, it was hard! Now that I am in the habit of writing something here every day I felt a little bit of withdrawal. But it was also good to stop for a day. I just wish the "day of rest" had been a bit farther along in the year - I think come late summer my motivation may start lagging.
Now you have to put up with my posts for the next 305 days (God willing).
5 comments:
I think that I probably could write every day, but I honestly have no desire to; at least, not at the present time. It would be an investment of time and energy, and I'm still uncertain what the payoff (real or perceived) is.
I must admit that I'm pretty impressed that you manage to do it, and you actually have interesting and substantial things to say, rather than a lot of fluff and filler.
Thanks for the compliment. Actually, I do post fluff and filler. But I do try and come up with enough original content to balance it. I am nowhere NEAR someone like Gregory over at Sippican Cottage, though - that man is amazing.
The payoff is the more you write the more you can write. My wife and I met in Freshman Honors English in college 26 years ago (and the professor in that class was the first to really convince this high school dropout I may actually have a brain worth exercising). One of the main texts of that class could be summarized as "Just write". Write, write, write. Write about nothing. Write about everything. Write until you can write without thinking about it" (I can be accused of that plenty! :-). It was hard advice to follow in pen-and-paper/typewriter 1982. It's supremely easy in Internet-driven 2008.
I have maintained a private-invitation email mailing list "salon" for 13 years now. I would say that is where I first found my "voice", writing to friends. It has given me a lot of "just write" practice. I also have to write a LOT for work, so I can pull off technical/detailed writing without even thinking about it.
Blogging has simply expanded my audience - not that it's that much bigger (about 3-5 times the salon's membership, looking at Google Analytics and Technorati), but it does help me refine my "voice" even more, and expand to other topics not of interest to the group in the salon. Plus it gives me new things to write about, and I can exercise more as a writer (I am working on some technicalities in my writing in my posts that I won't talk about, but are basically aimed at eliminating some bad habits).
In the end, the payoff is whether you want to write, work on writing and (hopefully) improve your writing. If that isn't interesting to you (which I would call bullshit on if you said so - I can tell you like to write), then don't blog more. If it is important then blog more. Someone will read it. That someone is your audience. Your audience is critical to finding and refining your voice. That's the payoff.
Herein endeth the sermon. :o)
Aaaaaaaannnddd another thing! (long-time friends will smile :-)
You COMMENT almost every day, which is, ahem, WRITING every day. If you wrote your comments on your blog and simply linked back to here (which I've recommended to you before) then you'd be blogging almost every single day. Since commenting is writing, you obviously DO see the payoff.
Now I'll give it a rest.
Maybe.
:o)
Yeah, I know. You kinda got me there. I read and comment quite heavily at times, to be honest.
Now that you mention it, I do see a lot of blog posts that are reactions to things the blogger has read on other blogs. And as you note, this provides linkage back to the original entry, which tickles Technorati, etc.
I'm not sure why I'm hesitant to commit to blogging more often. Maybe it's that word "commit". I'm not sure. (Can you tell I'm vacillating a lot on this whole thing?)
If you're afraid of committing then don't tell anybody you're going to blog more. Just blog more. We'll figure it out over time. :-)
Another thing would be to sign up for NaBloPoMo, now that they're doing one every month. It's a little later for March, but you could go for April. A post a day...How hard can it be? :-)
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